Will French Senate back making abortion a constitutional 'freedom'?
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00:00 We're covering this story for us from outside of the Senate in central Paris
00:04 is our reporter Carys Garland. She's with me live now. Carys, give us a sense of
00:07 what we can expect this afternoon.
00:11 Well none of the major French political parties that are represented in
00:16 Parliament are outright opposed to abortion itself but after that lower
00:21 house vote about a month ago where MPs in the National Assembly overwhelmingly
00:26 approved the right to abortion be enshrined in the Constitution. Today's
00:31 vote in the Senate as we've heard is less sure and that's because as we
00:35 mentioned the President of the Senate himself Gérard Larcher said that he
00:40 doesn't think that constitutionalizing this right is the way to go
00:44 because as we heard he doesn't think that the Constitution is a catalogue of
00:48 social rights and some senators have tried to amend the exact wording
00:54 of this bill. Those amendments were rejected this morning by the Senate Law
00:59 Committee with one Green senator saying that these amendments, these insignificant
01:05 changes in wording just prove that some senators are actually trying to delay
01:09 the bill. That's because if the Senate today does not approve the exact same
01:14 text that was approved in the National Assembly lawmakers will go back to
01:18 square one meaning this new version of a bill would have to be approved by the
01:23 National Assembly all over again. If the Senate goes the other way and does
01:28 actually approve this bill the two houses of Parliament will meet in a
01:34 Congress in Versailles and then vote for it to be enshrined in the
01:38 Constitution but senators, the 348 of them, are definitely under pressure to
01:44 vote accordingly because as we've heard many of an overwhelming majority of
01:49 French people believe that it should be enshrined in the Constitution and women's
01:52 rights groups have even called a protest today to put pressure on these senators.